


This Time

by terraphim



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Coping, Gen, Moving On
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-29
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-12-21 19:12:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/903841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terraphim/pseuds/terraphim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lot can change in one year. Raleigh Becket's finally starting to look forward. Rated for language. Raleigh/Mako if you squint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Time

_Time brings all things to pass. -_ Aeschylus

 

The day that Mutavore breaks through the Sydney Wall like it's tissue paper is the day that Raleigh really looks at the date for the first time in what feels like years. January 2nd. He realizes with a jolt that his twenty-sixth birthday has come and gone by more than two weeks, and not even with the slightest awareness.

Twenty-six. Not twenty-five anymore. How can he be twenty-six, when Yancy is going to be twenty-five forever?

It's not the grief that floods him when the thought hits. It's not even the guilt, which has been his constant companion atop the Wall, flowing from his hands into every slab of concrete laid, every girder welded into place. No, instead of these he feels a grim sliver of anger slice its way through his entire being. Anger at the kaiju who took his brother, anger at his twenty-two year old self for being the eager little shit that he was, anger at the damn Sydney Wall for failing so spectacularly.

But mostly, he is angry at the reporter, who has adopted the “grave” tone that network anchors always seemed to get when reporting kaiju disasters. As if they didn't live for it. As if ever since the breach opened there hasn't been news network execs getting wood over the catastrophes to report. Anything for ratings. And despite the fact that Mutavore has taken two Jaegers with it into the deep, four pilots ripped straight from the drift into the darkness, these fear-mongers continue to drill the same concept again and again and _again_ into their microphones.

Raleigh was fifteen when the kaiju first started, so it feels like a lifetime of attacks caught on phone cameras being replayed over and over on television, but he does remember what it was like before, “serious” news teams reporting the pregnancies of celebrities who were famous for God-knows-what and the drugged exploits of professional athletes, timed perfectly to commercials for electric mops and erectile dysfunction medication. When the Jaeger pilots began to appear on late night talk shows, Yancy has said that maybe, just _maybe,_ the bullshit would go away, but it hadn't happened. Instead, the pilots' private lives had become the new fodder for speculation. The people had changed, but the crap had remained the same.

As he watches the news coverage, he can hear the grumbles of the other workers. What is the point, they all say in some form or another, of all this work, if the monsters can just knock it down like a child with building blocks? In his heart, he can't help but agree. But he's had to do _something_ these last few years. Locked outside of the drift and trapped in his own head, he's had to spend this time usefully. He can't regret the time that has, apparently, been wasted. He's spent too many hours, too many moments. Too many birthdays. And even with this development in Sydney, he can't help but think that even with the truth now blaring its way through the reporter's nasal voice, he'll just have to keep at it, because at least it has been _something._

 

 

 

And then everything changes. He finds his way back into the drift, and his mind is once again two instead of one. Inside the handshake, time is different, faster and slower at the same time. Simultaneously he is twenty-six and twenty-two and the new voice in his head isn't Yancy but it still feels like _home_ and it still feels like _family,_ in a new and beautiful and slightly terrifying way. And when the monsters are all gone and the breach detonated, he floats in peace atop the waves, arms wrapped around an armor-shelled frame that pulses with actual life, drinking in the relieved, exhausted neurons being fired his way. She breathes against his shoulder. The pick-up crews soar overhead.

He doesn't know how he's alive, but unlike last time, he doesn't question it.

 

 

 

Mako finds him sprawled on the sofa, the remote falling from unconscious fingers. She runs her hand over his forehead, sweeps the bangs away and plants a soft kiss instead. He stirs and opens his eyes, smiling sleepily up at her.

“What time is it?”

Another brushing of gentle fingers through his hair preludes her sitting next to him. “Almost three in the morning. The Canadian parliament just granted us another six million.”

He sits up straight, “God, that's fantastic.”

She nods. “It's a good day.”

He taps on her watch. “Well, depending on which day you're talking about. When was the last time you slept?”

She stretches and leans against him, pulling her feet up underneath her. “I'll sleep soon enough. But I was, in fact, talking about the day it will be, not the day it was.”

“You get so philosophical when you're tired.”

“Hush. You know what I meant.”

“Oh perfectly. That doesn't mean I can't appreciate the phrasing.”

She punches him lightly in the arm. “I meant your birthday, idiot!”

An awkward silence fills the rooms for several seconds before he finally can think of something, anything, to say. “Oh. Right.”

Her brow furrows. “Not good?”

He shrugs. “Not bad. Just....” He pauses again, grasps at the air for a few moments, finally settling on the straight truth. “My last birthday, I spent drinking crap coffee from a thermos seven-hundred feet in the air and didn't even realize until weeks later.” Raleigh's smile creeps back onto his face. “Thanks for reminding me.”

She pushes her shoulder against his affectionately. “Anytime, Ranger.”

Silence, more comfortable this time, follows. They're both bleary-eyed and half-dozing against one another when the obnoxious noise revives Mako from her stupor.

“What on _earth_ are you watching?” She plucks the remote from his hand and toggles the volume lower, and only when the raucous din is silenced does she shoot him an incredulous look. “A _cooking_ contest? You can barely boil water for ramen.”

He shrugs again, this time a ghost of something that is _less_ of a smile, but not quite a frown, crossing his face. “I don't like those twenty-four hour news stations.”

She nods solemnly. She _knows._ He takes her hand and squeezes tightly.

“Anyway,” she says, after a few seconds of silence, “time for some sleep. And then tomorrow, we celebrate.”

He grins. “Sounds like a plan.”

She stands and pulls him to his feet, flipping the television off and heading for the darkened bedroom. He stays put, watching her pass through the door.

“You know, Mako.”

She peers back out. “Yes?”

“I think twenty-seven is going to be pretty good.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic I've completed in nearly a year. I hope it's not too awkwardly-written. My obsession with the Pacific Rim timeline coincided with my own twenty-seventh birthday and, as I've been on top of my own Wall for the last several years and it looks like I'm finally climbing down, I can related quite a lot to Raleigh Becket.
> 
> Also, this is apparently as close I can get to writing genfic. I'm pretty sure I failed.


End file.
